The Inquisition in the Early Modern World: Thirty Years of Exchange

Abstract

This essay analyses the context in which I produced a comparative study, based on primary sources, of the Inquisition in Southern Europe and on other continents from the fifteenth to the nineteenth century. The main questions, methods and arguments I used are discussed here, as well as the study’s publication in several languages and its reception in various countries. The purpose is to reflect on historiography, seen as a collective enterprise moved forward by individual efforts, although always checked and challenged, and on its public impact. I shall focus not only on the continuous process of exchange as the basis of knowledge, but also on changes in time and place that create new needs for historical research and new paradigms for the latter.

Keywords

• comparative history
• inquisition
• heresy
• representations
• system of values
• macro-micro analysis